Belgaum

Belgaum, city, northwestern Karnataka state, southwestern India. It is located in the Western Ghats at an elevation of about 2,500 feet (760 metres) above sea level.

The city dates from the 12th century. It later exercised strategic control over the plateau routes to Goa and the Arabian Sea coast to the southwest. Its early name, Venugrama, is said to have been derived from the bamboos characteristic of the region. A melting pot for the Kannada, Konkani, Marathi, and Goan cultures, modern Belgaum includes the original cantonment, the site of an oval stone fortress with a 16th-century mosque and of two Jaina temples, and the suburbs of Shahpur and Madhavpur.

The city is a busy trading centre on the National Highway, with rail connections north to Pune (Poona) and south to Bangalore (Bengaluru). Belgaum has cotton-weaving, leather, clay, soap, pottery, and metal utensil industries. Shahpur is known for gold work and silver work. Nearby Sambre has an airport. There are colleges of commerce, science, education, law, and medicine—including Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College—affiliated with Karnatak University in Hubli-Dharwad, which lies to the southeast. Pop. (2001) city, 399,653; urban agglom., 506,480; (2011) city, 488,157; urban agglom., 610,350.

Click anywhere inside the article to add text or insert superscripts, subscripts, and special characters.
You can also highlight a section and use the tools in this bar to modify existing content:

Add links to related Britannica articles!
You can double-click any word or highlight a word or phrase in the text below and then select an article from the search box.
Or, simply highlight a word or phrase in the article, then enter the article name or term you'd like to link to in the search box below, and select from the list of results.

Note: we do not allow links to external resources in editor.
Please click the Web sites link for this article to add citations for
external Web sites.